UK Watchdog Investigating Hoteliers, CoStar Over Data Sharing
A British watchdog agency launched an investigation into three of the globe’s largest hotel operators over their use of STR, CoStar Group’s hospitality data platform.
The Competition and Markets Authority, the primary antitrust regulator in the UK, disclosed the investigation Monday. The authority said it was probing whether the sensitive data shared on the platform by Hilton, InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott impacted how the companies made commercial decisions.
The CMA said the investigation was relevant to the Competition Act 1988, Britain’s key regulations around anticompetitive behavior, but said that no assumptions should be made about whether any laws were broken.
CoStar expressed puzzlement in a statement about the investigation.
“We are surprised at the CMA's interest in a long-standing hotel data analytics and benchmarking platform, that for decades has been used by companies and government entities alike to better assess market dynamics,” a CoStar spokesperson said.
The CMA said it would provide updates to the case on a page titled “Suspected anti-competitive conduct in relation to hotel accommodation services.” The authority said it would issue formal objections if it reaches a preliminary conclusion that laws were broken.
Information is considered competitively sensitive when it reduces competitive uncertainty in the market and could influence the strategy of other businesses, the CMA said.
A CoStar spokesperson said its UK team was fully cooperating with the investigation and said the firm was “happy to provide the CMA with assistance." CoStar expects the investigation to last for the next six months, the spokesperson said.
IHG confirmed in a statement posted to its website that it had been notified that it was one of several hospitality groups facing the probe into “suspected sharing of competitively sensitive information among competing hotel chains.”
“IHG will co-operate fully with the CMA’s inquiries,” the statement says. “The CMA noted that no assumptions should be made about whether competition law has been infringed. IHG will not be making any further comment at this time.”
Hilton and Marriott didn’t respond to Bisnow’s request for comment Tuesday.
In the U.S., CoStar and several major hotel chains were sued in a class action in 2024 that accused the firms of artificially inflating room rates. That suit was eventually dismissed.
Multifamily landlords and software provider RealPage have also faced class-action and federal lawsuits over the last two years that similarly allege that the aggregation of data — and the use of algorithms to suggest prices for end clients — violated U.S. antitrust laws.
RealPage reached a settlement to resolve its antitrust allegations with the federal government late last year. Federal prosecutors said the settlement put additional guardrails in place to ensure a competitive marketplace, and RealPage said it was already abiding by nearly all of the restrictions laid out in the settlement.
Several other major U.S. landlords, including Greystar and Cortland, have reached similar deals in the federal antitrust case.
More than two dozen landlords have reached deals to resolve the civil allegations of the RealPage-related class action without admitting any wrongdoing, while others continue to fight in court.
